


In Chains

by purplekitte



Category: Horus Heresy - Various Authors, Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Dark Magic, I Don't Even Know, Lorgar why are you so creepy, M/M, Why Did I Write This?, and Guilliman is Húrin or something?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 19:40:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/777267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplekitte/pseuds/purplekitte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>In all the galaxy there is no other sight such as this that the uncountable flocks of pilgrims see: a primarch brought low.</i>
</p><p>(or: In a vague AU where Chaos won, Guilliman is Lorgar's prisoner.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Chains

**Author's Note:**

> I read _Know No Fear_ in the last two days and then wrote this, because it's not like I had other things I needed to do yesterday! Did you know I used to dislike Guilliman? And then his brief appearance in _Betrayer_ and "Rules of Engagement" and then this and someone in tumblr was liveblogging reading _Mark of Calth_ and I have too many feels.

At the heart of the dark cathedral world of Colchis, there is a enchantment of unsurpassed power. There are layers and layers of it, built into the very architecture as canals of blood and fences of crucified innocents, with footpaths cobbled with skulls as its prayer wheels and deep, putrid swamps to anchor it. It is a spell of entrapment, of holding and binding and imprisonment, cruel angainor chains to keep something never meant to be contained.

At its centre are seven wards: of silver, gold, and lead; rowan, ash, and oak; and the seventh ward is bone. The metal was ripped from the hearts of planets that were once great bastions of prosperity and culture, now scorched and lifeless husks or the shards of new asteroid belts. The wood was from old and noble trees felled without anything planted in return and that which was not used was left to rot. The bones were those of good, loyal men who once loved the man within their bonds and were loved by him as his own sons, twisted into their current shapes while they were still alive and harvested by removing everything around them layer by molecular layer.

For within these wards is a man in adamantium chains. No, not a man. A demi-god. A figure out of legend from a lost age. In all the galaxy there is no other sight such as this that the uncountable flocks of pilgrims see: a primarch brought low.

It is a pageant, a show. Come one, come all, see what one who was once great has been reduced too.

Lorgar never tires of the sight of his greatest prize. Roboute Guilliman fallen from grace and in his power. To the victor, the spoils.

He is noble still, and beautiful. His body will not wither from disuse nor age. Lorgar’s eyes wander his form; he is naked as an animal, having not even the dignity of raiments. Besides the scars of old battle wounds, he is untouched by torture or mutilation. Physical pain would merely be a distraction from the pain already in his soul.

Sometimes he is still to conserve his strength and other times he thrashes to the limits of his ability, fighting to break free with all he has. No matter how deep into despair he has sunk, he is physically incapable of ever giving up. If he were ever to get free, he would be the most dangerous of men still. Maybe he will. In Chaos it is known that nothing lasts forever.

His despondency is obvious, though. Here is a man who not longer hopes for a better future. He has lost everything he ever had or loved or believed in. He is not a loyalist anymore, for he has nothing to be loyal to left, no person or place or ideal. So alone in all the galaxy. He looks for no rescue nor does he ever beg or pray to anyone or anything, for freedom, death, or revenge. He knows little of the state of the wider galaxy, but he knows enough.

It is a gift to be able to see the once calm and collected man broken down to his raw emotions. His pride is broken, and his dreams. He is rage and pain, vengeance and loathing. His heart is broken and he knows his life is futility. All these things are laid bare for anyone to see.

Lorgar pities him sometimes, even as he hates him still. He knows why his brother hates him. He has hated Guilliman for similar reasons before and knows it. The trouble with empathy is that it doesn’t have an off-switch.

He feels shame sometimes but not regret. He wasn’t wrong. It was his justice. It was what needed to be done. He can wish he lived in a perfect, unfallen world where nothing ever went wrong in the first place and people were always nice to each other, but he never has.

Sometimes Guilliman rages and sometimes he weeps, uncaring of the spectacle that he is. Now his eyes are closed and there are tear tracks still drying on his stern face. It is so beautiful to see the moment he becomes aware of Lorgar’s approaching presence, the way his passive expression of hopeless abandonment morphs into a snarling mask of hatred. He cares not at all for the multitudes who see him like this, but he hates Lorgar too much to even feign indifference.

Lorgar kneels beside him and leans over him and licks the lines of tears from his face. It has been a long time since he was last able to cry and it suits him, Lorgar thinks, makes him look like a statue in the rain imitating humanity almost perfectly. ‘Good morning, Roboute.’

Guilliman’s voice is a dry whisper. He’s had neither food nor drink since he was brought here, but that could hardly kill a being such as he. ‘I will kill you. I will make you regret not killing me when you had the chance. I will make it be the last mistake you ever make. I’ll eat your still-beating heart.’

‘Such a delight it is to hear your dulcet tones too, brother.’

Guilliman doesn’t rise to the bait by renouncing the kinship between them once more. Their feelings have not lessened, but this has all become familiar. They’ve had this conversation many, many times. Lorgar and his teases, Guilliman and his promises.

‘Giving me the silent treatment?’ Lorgar smiles. It’s almost kind, almost loving. He wouldn’t hate him so if he weren’t drawn to him like a moth to a flame, even here, as things are now. Wanting to be able to love him is like a geass he still cannot break.

‘What else is there to say?’

He’s trying to be cold again, in control of himself and the situation. Lorgar can’t have that. It is sweet that he still tries, it really is. If who you are in the dark is the true test of a man’s character, then Lorgar knows him better than any other, with everything but who he is stripped away. It is a sight to behold, that which cracks and shatters and what still remains.

Lorgar caresses his cheek gently. He lays a hand over his primary heart to feel the frantic pounding, the rush of blood and combat hormones as he instinctively gears up for conflict beneath any façade of stoicism. He likes to touch him. Guilliman would never have allowed this when he had been in a position to refuse anything. He likes to remind him he’s a creature of flesh and blood, not pure will and intellect, human and fallible and tied here. He wants to hold him as he weeps with frustration at his inability to see his will done and rip Lorgar apart with his bare hands. He kisses Guilliman while whispering sweet nothings into his mind. +You couldn’t protect anything, Roboute. They all died screaming. They died cursing your name. You are weak.+

Guilliman tries to bite him.

Lorgar lets him draw blood, but Guilliman can’t quite get the leverage within his bonds to tear away chunks of flesh like he wants to. He lets his own blood ease Guilliman’s parched throat as the kiss deepens. His lips are painted brightly as if with rouge in his pale and wan face. He is so beautiful.

Guilliman sighs softly as Lorgar straddles him and his hands roam his body, but no more. This is familiar to Guilliman too. What he does, straining against his chains, ultimately doesn’t matter, but it is always fascinating. Some days he fights every moment of the way, not because he still thinks he can tear free, but because pain is proof of his existence and defiance its own reward. Others he husbands his strength in the hopeless hope of one day finding a fight not in vain, abandoning his body of flesh to Lorgar’s attentions and retreating to the fortress of his mind.

‘Endure, and in enduring grow strong,’ Lorgar whispers against his lips, repeating his own words back.

‘Your death will be mine. No one else will take it from me. Then you’ll be dead and that will be that.’

Lorgar laughs. How much his brother wants to be the sort of man who could be satisfied by his enemy’s death and put all things behind him to move on with his life. It might once had been true. Maybe he underestimates his brother and if given the opportunity he would revert to his old type and try to seize a new future. Maybe he would become a better man than he had been, having learnt humility and compassion for the weak and powerless. Maybe he would return to the same arrogant bastard he’d always been. For now, he clearly cannot see so far ahead. He cannot build anymore. He cannot plan a strategy of revolution and reclamation. His only worldly desire is for vengeance and it suffuses him entirely. As it is, he simply cannot care what happens after Lorgar is dead in his theoretical. There is no after for him before.

Experience has taught him exactly how to best draw the tiniest of unrestrained whimpers and moans from his lips, the flinches and the shuddering sobs. Guilliman doesn’t try so hard to keep quiet anymore. He doesn’t care what anyone sees of him. There is no audience that matters except Lorgar, his nemesis, who already knows his soul and the hatred in his heart. It’s only mechanical; he is not a man who can take any comfort from the sole human contact remaining in his life when it is with his enemy.

Lorgar whispers to him in twisted intimacy, mockery and endearments at once, ‘Roboute. My brother.’ Lorgar takes him and the wards around him tighten with the influx of magic.

There is always power in the defilement of something pure.

Afterwards, Lorgar drapes himself across his chest and speaks to him about anything and everything. How has the climate control been lately? Too hot? Too cold? I can change it. Do you ever get bored, alone with your thoughts and the madness around you? Do you ever make up stories about the mortals you glimpse whenever you turn your head? I’m trying to think of exactly the right wording for what I mean to say in this line of my newest book. What do you think?

Guilliman answers him with the same tired litany instead of engaging him. You are crazy. You are a raving maniac. I hate you.

‘Why won’t you see the truth?’ Lorgar asks.

‘If I converted and said you’d been right all along, would we be brothers again? Would you forgive me? Because even if you begged me for it, I would never, ever forgive you.’ His voice cracks with the weight of his malice.

Lorgar isn’t sure. He has always wanted to love his family, even when he was called weak and soft for it. He has always tried to bring them all into the fold so their betrayal and extermination would not be necessary. But he has other human weaknesses, magnified in his primarch glory, and the ability to hold a grudge was one of them.

He does not answer. ‘It will never happen.’

‘ _That_ is true.’

‘I’ll see you again, my brother.’

Guilliman musters up enough moisture to spit in his face. It’s not acid and would hardly have inconvenienced him even if it had been, but Lorgar wipes it away with the back of his hand.

Then he turns away to leave Roboute Guilliman to his chains and his solitude and the endless madness that surrounds him.


End file.
